What is U-Space

The demand for drone services is steadily increasing, with the potential to generate significant economic growth and societal benefits.

The U-Space will help unleash the potential of this new service market while ensuring the safe and secure integration of these drone operations in our urban areas and countryside. The European Union is taking a leading role in this area.

In order to realize this potential, the Declaration calls for “urgent action on the airspace dimension, in particular, the development of the concept of U-space”.

Ultimately, U-space will enable complex drone operations with a high degree of automation to take place in all types of operational environments, including urban areas. U-space must be flexible enough to encourage innovation, support the development of new businesses and facilitate the overall growth of the European drone services market while properly addressing, at the EU level, safety and security issues, respecting the privacy of citizens, and minimizing the environmental impact.

Drones are a promising source of innovative services for society, from safer infrastructure inspections to more efficient transport and mobility solutions. Drones also offer an opportunity to green aviation and optimize deliveries.

U-space is a set of new services relying on a high level of digitalization and automation of functions and specific procedures, supported by AI, designed to provide safe, efficient, and secure access to airspace for large numbers of unmanned aircraft, operating automatically and beyond visual line of sight.

U-Space is such an unmanned aircraft traffic management solution that will allow the scaling up of the volume of drone operations that are complex, in environments that are challenging. This would include transport and mobility applications in urban environments, or close to airports.

U-space is a set of new services and specific procedures designed to support safe, efficient, and secure access to airspace for large numbers of drones. These services rely on a high level of digitalization and automation of functions, whether they are onboard the drone itself, or are part of the ground-based environment.

U-space provides an enabling framework to support routine drone operations, as well as a clear and effective interface to manned aviation, ATM/ANS service providers, and authorities. U-space is therefore not to be considered as a defined volume of airspace, which is segregated and designated for the sole use of drones. U-space is capable of ensuring the smooth operation of drones in all operating environments, and in all types of airspace (in particular but not limited to very low-level airspace). It addresses the need to support all types of missions and may concern all drone users and categories of drones.

Following the industry’s tremendous development in recent years, the need for a system to support the safe and efficient integration and management of UAS into airspace has become essential. In Europe, this system is called U-space and it is based on establishing U-space airspaces in which a minimum and mandatory set of services will be provided.

For the development and safe deployment of U-space, it is essential to have appropriate regulations that will support this new system and its integration into the air traffic management (ATM) system.

The concept of U-space emerged to support commercial operations with drones, especially those entailing greater complexity and automation. This is the European system being developed to manage drone traffic.

U-space is a set of specific services and procedures designed to ensure safe and efficient access to airspace for a large number of drones, and which are based on high levels of digitalization and automation.

The purpose of U-space is therefore to achieve automated UAS management and integration, allowing for a large series of operations, many of them even simultaneous, and all of this in harmonious coexistence with the current ATM system.

Implementing this new system requires States first to define and designate U-space airspaces – which will be the volumes of airspace in which the mandatory U-space services will be provided – in order to guarantee safe, efficient, and interoperable operations.

What are the key principles of U-space?

The delivery of U-space relies upon the following key principles:

1. To ensure the safety of all airspace users operating in the U-space framework, as well as people on the ground.
2. To provide a scalable, flexible and adaptable system that can respond to changes in demand, volume, technology, business models and applications, while managing the interface with manned aviation.
3. To enable high-density operations with multiple automated drones under the supervision of fleet operators.
4. To guarantee equitable and fair access to airspace for all users.
5. To enable competitive and cost-effective service provision at all times, supporting the business models of drone operators.
6. To minimize deployment and operating costs by leveraging, as much as possible, existing aeronautical services and infrastructure, including GNSS, as well as those from other sectors, such as mobile communication services.
7. To accelerate deployment by adopting technologies and standards from other sectors where they meet the needs of U-space.
8. To follow a risk-based and performance driven approach when setting up appropriate requirements for safety, security (including cyber-security) and resilience (including failure mode management), while minimizing environmental impact and respecting the privacy of citizens, including data protection.